Buses

Buses might be the poor cousin of Melbourne public transport, but I still write about them.

Farewell to Melbourne’s first electric bus

This is the story of Melbourne’s first electric bus, which doesn’t even operate in Victoria any more. The story starts in 2019, when Melbourne-based bus body builder Volgren was building a prototype electric bus on an imported BYD K9 chassis. In July 2019 Volgren completed the prototype of its first ever pure-electric bus, a product […]

A new life for a retired PTV bus

The other night out in St Kilda I saw an interesting looking bus – painted all black with a massive ‘Addikted To Ink’ logo on the side, it looked like one of the buses that Transdev Melbourne used to operate in Melbourne. But was it? Looking up the company name, I found the bus featured […]

Articulated buses of Melbourne

Transdev articulated bus #118 BS00TB on a route 907 service at Lonsdale and William Street
Transdev articulated bus #118 BS00TB on a route 907 service at Lonsdale and William Street

Farewell to Transdev Melbourne

31 January 2022 marked yet another deck chair shuffling exercise on the Melbourne public transport network – Kinetic Melbourne has taken over the operation of 534 buses on 49 bus routes. This is the story of their predecessor, Transdev Melbourne. The beginning The story starts in June 2012 when the Victorian Government called for expressions […]

Still more COVID-19 related public transport observations

Victoria is now onto lockdown #6 and the pandemic has no end in sight – so here’s another round of COVID-19 related public transport observations. Cleaning “Hygiene Theater” is still an everyday operation on the Melbourne rail network. Wiping down the handrails may make some sense. But a ‘hygiene team’ wiping down bus stops is […]